Digital Women UK partner heads new tech research

Digital Women UK’s academic partner Dr Angela Martinez Dy, an entrepreneurship lecturer at Loughborough University London, will lead a research study project aimed at doubling the number of female and BAME tech business entrepreneurs by 2020.

Loughborough University London will be studying the effectiveness of Capital Enterprise’s newly launched Diversity in Tech programme. Supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, it aims to double the number of female and BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) founders accessing investment by 2020, particularly women from the capital’s most under-represented communities, with the opportunity to start and scale a high growth tech business.

The research is being led by Dr Angela Martinez Dy, lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Digital Women UK’s Missing in Action co-founder, with support from Associate Dean for Enterprise Professor Mikko Koria and wider members of the Loughborough University London community.

Martinez Dy said: “It is exciting to serve as an academic researcher as part of a diverse team of stakeholders working with Capital Enterprise to increase diversity in the UK tech industry. Women and people of colour are actively entrepreneurial, but are often unable to access the platforms or resources they need to take their ideas forward. We need to address this problem collaboratively so we can reduce the barriers and facilitate genuine inclusivity in the tech start-up world.”

In 2017, a Beauhurst report revealed that 91% of all venture capital investment in the UK goes to startups and scale-ups with all-male founding teams. Women and BAME founders including those that live, work and study in the east London boroughs, where London Tech startups cluster, are missing out.